The Grudge 2 the reckoning
by goolcaptain
Summary: What happened after the final fadeout in The Grudge? Let's find out. If you ever lost someone to cancer you might not like this. Or you just might.


Originally published this as M but that means it doesn't get put on Just In or archived so I've toned down the violence and republished as T

Summary; what happened after the final fade out on the 'The Grudge'? I'm sure we all have our theories, here's mine.  
Disclaimer; all belongs to Sam Rami, Twentieth Century Fox or whoever, none to me, purely a fic for entertainment purposes to be distributed on the net, blah, blah, you know the drill, for crying out loud do you really think they care although I am aware that they do read it but as long as we're not making any money I think they're ok with it…  
Rating; R for violence and graphic maiming  
Feedback; as you like it

The Grudge 2; The Reckoning

It was time.  
She made her bed, folding the sheets back neatly as she had learned to do at nursing college. Some old habits were hard to break. She took one last moment to re-arrange her gifts, her flowers and cuddly toys. But no chocolate, no grapes. People had learned fast not to give her those. She disconnected the drip. Without the morphine the pain would return soon. But it would all be over by then. She left the note for her family on her pillow. They would find it after she was gone  
She got up and walked past the nurse's station. She waved to her slightly. The nurse waved back, not looking up from her crossword puzzle. Karen quailed inside. She was accustomed to people avoiding looking at her by now. But it never failed to hurt her.  
How she had always taken it for granted. When she was a cheerleader, when she was the prom queen. Even as a small child her parents friends had always fussed over her, said how pretty she was. She'd always been daddy and mommy's pretty little girl, perhaps more so than even her sister. How she yearned now for that look whenever she'd walked into a room and bunches of hungry guys stared at her like starving wolves thrown a plate of raw steak, yearning for her, lusting after her. Even some of the girls at school had wanted her, some of the lesbians at college hitting on her subtly. How she'd enjoyed her power, how she'd reveled in it.  
Was she being punished now? Punished for teasing them all, punished for her vanity?  
Now even she couldn't look at herself. Now she was a freak, her jawbone ripped from its' socket, her face a shapeless mass, her voice drowned in mutilated flesh. Was this why the spirits had let her live when they'd killed all the others? Was she to live to punish herself?  
Well, she would show them.  
She made her way to the top corridor. It was deserted at this time of night. Eventually the nurse would come to look for her but by then it would be far too late. That professor had the right idea and she would now follow his example. The sign over the rooftop exit beckoned to her through the darkness.  
She jumped the height of herself as the hand came through the darkness and took her arm. Were they here to stop her? Had they followed her from Japan? Crossed the Pacific to ensure her suffering would go on?  
She wasn't afraid to look. She wasn't afraid of death. They had done all the damage they would ever do to her.  
The girl looked about nine. She was bald. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. Karen didn't need her medical training to detect the ravages of cancer and the dreadful after-affects of chemotherapy, a cure almost as bad as the disease it fought. She had collapsed here outside the toilets. She was obviously too weak to go by herself but pride meant everything when you were a kid, Karen knew that well enough. Had she been forgotten here? Did no one know she was left in this corridor, left in pain?  
"What's your name?"  
Karen instinctively took her hand and motioned to her mouth, wrapped in bandages, indicating that she couldn't speak. The girl handed her a colouring book and a crayon. Karen got the hint and wrote on it.  
'I'm Karen, what's your name?'  
She took the crayon back from her and wrote 'I'm Lindsay'  
Karen couldn't smile. The loss of her jawbone meant that it was impossible for her to flex her facial muscles in the correct manner. But she could smile with her eyes.  
Lindsay smiled back.

She looked in the mirror.  
The scars were still there. They would always be there. But they were subtle now, you wouldn't even notice them in common conversation. A little makeup and you would never notice them. The swelling had gone down, the bruising fading.  
It hurt. The pins hurt, connecting her jaw to her skull, to the muscles on her chin. She would be popping morphine for the pain for the rest of her life. But it was bearable. And soon she wouldn't even notice.  
There would be more. More operations, more refinements, drug therapy, physiotherapy, speech therapy. There would be so much more.  
But now she could look at herself in the mirror again. And others could look at her too.  
She put on her clothes. Proper clothes, her own, no longer content to wear shapeless hospital gowns.   
She walked down the corridor to Lindsay's room. She passed a cop speaking to a couple of orderlies. They followed her with their eyes as she went by. She lingered around the corner and listened to them.  
"Hooo baby!"  
"Hot!" the cop agreed.  
She passed a trolley, laden with food for the wards. Inexplicably someone had failed to finish their chocolate cake. She reached down and snapped herself off a piece. She relished it, not just for the taste but the sensation, the glorious texture and delightful contrasts as she chewed solid food once more. It tasted better than anything she ever remembered.  
Lindsay's parents and brother were outside her room. Their faces were drawn and tired. But they looked up with delight as Karen approached. Karen smiled at them, smiled at them properly for the first time.  
Lindsay's room was festooned with pictures, cards and drawings. Many of them were of her and Karen, hanging out together on the ward, taking day trips outside in her wheelchair before her condition had worsened to the degree that made it impossible. She was drawing now, drawing weakly with one hand. She was drawing pagodas, drawing them from Karen's description and the photos she had shown her of Japan.  
She looked up with a smile as Karen entered the room. And Karen returned it, as she had yearned to do for so long.  
"I'm beautiful again" Karen remarked taking Lindsay's hand. It occurred to her that these were the first words Lindsay had ever heard her speak.  
Lindsay looked at her, puzzled.   
"You always were"  
Lindsay died that night.

They knew she was there. Karen suspected that they'd know the moment that she'd got off the plane. But they waited until she came to the house.  
It looked different now, charred from the fire she had started. Partially demolished. But only partially, the contractors frightened away by unexplained deaths amongst their workforce, even the security guard's hut empty, abandoned. There was no need, no one was going near this house. You didn't need to be able to read Japanese to be able to identify 'For Sale' signs dotted around the surrounding buildings.  
She mounted the steps, slowly, methodically, taking her time.  
She barely touched the door. It swung open almost of it's own accord.  
The boy was there. Pale, almost bluish, clutching his drowned cat closely to his chest.  
He opened his mouth and began to howl….

She reached forward and took him in her arms. Took him in her arms and kissed him on the forehead. He resisted at first but eventually gave into the hug. She reached down and stroked the cat. It hissed and bit her, clawed at her flesh. But it too rapidly submitted to her act of affection. If there was one sound for contentment in all the world it was that of a purr.  
"It's ok" she whispered, "It's ok". In all the research she'd done she'd never been able to discover if the kid could speak English. But it didn't matter. Her tone said it all.  
The spirits bathed in her love. For it was what they had craved after all they had suffered, all the dreadful things they had witnessed. All they needed was for someone to take them in their arms and tell them it would all be alright.  
And Karen did.  
She heard the sound behind her. The gurgling, the dreadful dull clicking of the death rattle. She recognised it instantly, the noise sending shivers through her soul. Because she had made that noise, when her jawbone was ripped out she had made that noise when she had been trying frantically to speak. And she knew the pain that poor woman must be going through.  
She turned and embraced her. Embraced her and kissed her, deep, longing, probing kisses, full on the mouth, never caring a moment for the mutilation or her inability to respond. She cradled her head in her hands and felt the spirits' hands cup hers, cold, cold hands.  
After all her pain, all the brutality she had undergone all she craved was a sign of passion, that someone still craved her, still wanted her.  
Karen did.  
Her seized her from behind, wrenching her from his wife's grasp. Her hauled Karen across the floor to the bathroom, his captive instinctively struggling to escape.  
Panic gripped her as he forced her head under the water, cracking her skull against the sides of the bathtub. Karen clawed at his hands with her nails but it was pointless. She used all her self control to reach out with one hand and rip the plug from the plug-hole. He reached out with one hand to stop her and she used the distraction to twist around, knocking his hand free of her hair with her forearms.  
He grabbed her by the throat and started pushing her back under the water, facing her as he drowned her for the first time with any of his victims.  
Amongst the water a single tear dripped from Karen's eye onto his hand.  
"I'm sorry" she mouthed silently.  
And someone understood. Finally someone understood all his rage and anger and hate.  
And guilt.  
Karen forgave him. Forgave them all.  
And then they were gone. The house was empty. That was it, no lightshow, no explosion. The spirits were gone, at peace.  
Karen took a few minutes to gather herself and then slowly left the house, bidding final farewell to the place that had caused her so much pain and earned her utter redemption.  
For no place was good or evil. No death-camp or torture chamber or prison was in itself evil. It was purely what humanity did there. And nowhere was forever damned.  
Because there was always a new day and an infinite number of possibilities for each and every soul. You took each day and made what you wished of it.  
Karen walked out into the Tokyo morning, a world of choice and potential at her feet.

The End


End file.
